4 ms·

Ask HN: Prefer being tracked and seeing ads, or pay small subscription?

• madamelic 8y ago
  God no. I'd much rather pay like $15, $20, $30... $1 isn't going to cover it. $1 is maybe 1 or 2 really good CPC. I am not going to attempt to use all of the acronyms but $1 is still within the range of still needing more revenue. I'd much rather pay a large amount and have a definite "this money will make us not sell your data" than a "a $1 donation means we won't show you ads". All of that said, I am extremely doubtful any large company would abide. Most would take the $15+ and continue doing what they're doing. In my opinion, it's not about needing to cover costs and make a tidy profit. It's a complete failure of how tech companies are valued. They are expected to "eat the world" and therefore, their revenues have to continually climb. There is a dearth of "good enough" in tech companies.
  • elamje 8y ago
    It's not so much a question about would they honor your subscription contract or not. Assuming they would, would you rather pay explicitly, or just continue with the current "free" model.
  • deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
• potta_coffee 8y ago
  I prefer neither. I enjoyed the web better before the big sites took all the traffic away from small forums and passion-project, personal websites.
  • elamje 8y ago
    Given the current situation, which would you choose? I understand the desire for the web to be like it was in the late 90's and early 00's, but we are here now, and some of the services are incredibly great compared to the previous generation of websites.
    • sarcasmatwork 8y ago
      Neither. Anonymous browsing? Why should we have to accept being tracked or paying $$ when its NEVER been like that? It's not their data, its mine. How about these companies pay me to use my info? I choose to sell how much and what. They dont like it? Well, you have a poor business model.
      • shanecleveland 8y ago
        OK. But you do understand that it costs money to both produce content and keep sites online, right?
        • rolph 8y ago
          interesting. I pay nothing for my site, i pay nothing to type text into my landing page and i pay nothing for my users to post data and info, and i ask nothing in return other than common courtesy.
          • potta_coffee 8y ago
            Right. It costs money to make content into a business. Content itself costs nothing and is worth nothing. It's attention that has value (to advertisers). But advertising and tracking lower the value of the content that they're attached to, to just about nil.
      • elamje 8y ago
        Just to add onto what someone else said, if all users did what you do, the companies would shut down or have to work off of donations
• rolph 8y ago
  I would choose none of the above, i would go to a nonindexed site and find the information i want for free, and let them link to my site for free. actually this is what i do already my site is in excess of 20 TB and uses mesh technology as well as providing a gateway to the common internet.
• shanecleveland 8y ago
  No. I pay and donate to some, but they tend to be niche sites where ad revenue wouldn't be high enough. I get so much value out of ad-supported sites and could never afford to pay enough for all of them. Ads can be done well. I commonly back out of sites with intrusive ads that significantly degrade the experience. And I completely avoid most social medial, including Facebook.
• rchaud 8y ago
  I would not pay a fee to Big Tech, since that's not how their business model works. They wouldn't be billion dollar companies if they started off by offering email for $1/month or whatever. They would have turned away 90%+ of their users the second they asked for your credit card information. Why do you think SV companies are measured on the basis of 'user growth/engagement' rather than actual cash? It's because the value of the company is based on the size of their userbase, not the actual quality of their product. Once network effects are established and switching costs have increased, that's when you can really start to compromise on the product to start meeting business objectives.